


Scales

by TheRebelFlower



Series: Fab Five Feb 2021 [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Fab Five Feb 2021, Family Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29227806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRebelFlower/pseuds/TheRebelFlower
Summary: When John is stuck at home, Kayo comes up with an unexpected way to pass time.
Series: Fab Five Feb 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174397
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	Scales

**Author's Note:**

> This is my John entry for the 2021 Fab Five Feb challenge on Tumblr. The prompts were: mountain, curiosity, "What's that?", delicate and basket.

Kayo found him on the terrace, sitting at a picnic table. He was staring out at the sea, his long fingers stroking the rim of his coffee mug absently, his tablet forgotten next to him. She held back a smile at his forlorn expression; John was as bad as his brothers when it came to forced downtime. He didn’t like it and he would find any excuse to get out of it, but Sally had been adamant about him staying Earth-side for a week.

And when Sally was adamant about something, it wasn’t the best idea to try and skirt around her decision.

While Kayo knew she could sneak up on him and seem like she had materialized next to the table, it wouldn’t be nice to him and she tried to draw his attention from afar instead. “Mind if I join you?” she called out.

John startled and turned to face her, his stunning turquoise gaze focusing first on her, then on the box she was carrying. “Good morning,” he greeted back.

“How’s your head?”

“I’m fine, as I have been for the last few days.”

“Concussions are serious. You can’t just go back to work or, even worse, in space, before Grandma is sure everything is okay. It’s not like you didn’t need the rest in general, anyway.”

He sighed, accepting his fate, not that he had much of a choice... he nodded toward the box and asked: “What’s this?”

She approached the table, glad to see that she had sparked his curiosity. “I thought you might need a little simple, yet time-consuming, distraction,” she began, sitting next to him and placing the box in front of them. “When I was younger, my father taught me about trimming bonsai trees, but he also taught me about... that.”

She removed the lid to reveal what appeared to be a pile of paper. John cocked an eyebrow at her, waiting for further explanation.

“Hold on, I know I have a few left in th—ere!”

She reached into the box and retrieved a small, triangular-shaped, folded piece of paper that she presented to him on her outstretched hand. “He taught me to build things using these folded triangles. You can make pretty much anything you can imagine, but it requires many of these. Folding them might have been a way to calm me down and teach me patience when I was restless and ignoring his instructions at first, but it’s actually quite relaxing.”

“Restless and not listening to instructions? You?” he exclaimed in mock surprise.

She poked him in the ribs. “Is this how I am treated for trying to make your day better?”

“You said it first,” he teased, chuckling and blocking a second poke before she reached him.

She gave him the side-eye, but was struggling not to smile back. “Anyway, I thought this might appeal to you because it has a logical and mathematical side as well. It’s almost like a puzzle.”

He picked up the folded paper, rolling it over his knuckles like he would have done with a coin. “Alright, so what are we building?”

“Whatever you want. There are a bunch of models online, mostly flowers or baskets or animals,” Kayo picked up his tablet and searched for something before showing him.

He perused the list for a moment. Kayo was a little surprised that he was agreeing so quickly. He was either bored out of his mind or he wanted to humor her so that she went away, although he looked genuinely intrigued.

“How about this one?” he asked, pointing at a dragon with its wings outstretched, almost lost in the sea of swans and boxes and... whatever that thing with the googly eyes was.

“It’s pretty,” she replied, tapping on it to see the details, including the number of pieces required. “There are 32 pieces per sheet of paper, so this will tell you how many we need. Just look at what I have in there as far as colors go. I’ll go get glue and make tea. We’ll need it.”

He grunted in protest. “Can I get coffee instead? A fresh pot is one of the few things I actually miss on Five.”

She stood and picked up his mug. “You've had some this morning already, sorry. Can’t have too much caffeine, you know that.”

He pouted in a way that reminded her strongly of his brother Alan. “Fine.”

She squeezed his shoulder in apology and went back inside the house.

When she came back, he had already selected some papers and was using the small blade and cutting board she had in the box to make rectangles. He was very meticulous about it and she already knew each piece would be perfectly straight and therefore easier to work with. Interestingly, he had chosen a very dark indigo colored paper for the body, plus a couple of already folded blue triangles from the box to use for the eyes. The outlines of the wings and tail were to be made with a satiny plum paper. It shimmered a bit as he moved the sheets; the final effect would be sober, yet stunning.

Naturally, he had unfolded one of the triangles to study it, so Kayo wouldn't even have to show him how to build the triangles, not that it was very difficult. She upturned the box lid and placed it in front of them to catch the pieces as they made them and put the blue ones in there for good measure. “Only a few more hundred to go,” she said, sitting down and eyeing the impressive pile of rectangles John had already calculated and cut.

“You were quite restless when you were young, weren’t you,” he deadpanned, but quickly took a sip from his mug to fight the mischievous smile threatening his composure.

She worried her lip for a moment, then replied: “My largest piece was a tiger. Took me days to finish. It was so big and heavy you could have thrown it at an opponent to knock them down.”

John made an odd little sound in his throat as he struggled to swallow his mouthful of tea. “Please tell me you didn’t...”

“No, of course not.” She paused. “It was funnier to hide it in the front garden so that visitors saw it at the last moment.”

He snorted into his tea. “Okay, Gordon, what have you done with Kayo?”

She giggled as she began folding papers, flicking them toward the box lid. She rarely talked about her life before she and Kyrano had moved to the island and it was intriguing. “My father had me train harder as a punishment when he found out, but I think he truly found it amusing and he left it there. It eventually died a soggy death in a severe and sudden rainstorm.”

“Aww.”

“I actually missed it when it was gone.”

They settled into a rhythm quickly, chatting idly once in a while as they worked, but also comfortable with each other’s silence. Alan, Gordon, or even Scott would have started fretting after a while and tried to say something to fill out the void, but both Kayo and John didn’t mind the quietness, moreso they embraced it.

They didn’t stop for lunch until they were done folding. As Kayo had said, the activity was soothing and quite engrossing. They left the mountain of triangles momentarily to have a quick chicken and mango salad but were soon back at the picnic table to start building their project.

After a while, they heard Virgil playing the piano. The sound wasn’t as clear as if they had been in the lounge, but they could still easily make out what he was playing.

“I guess the meeting he had with Scott and the GDF went well,” Kayo commented, listening to the lively tune while adding pieces to the wing on her side of the dragon.

John slowed down until he stopped completely. When Kayo glanced at him to see why he wasn’t moving, she saw that his eyes were closed; he was obviously giving his full attention to his brother’s music. She smiled and continued working, but took extra care not to be noisy and disturb him. Eventually, he commented quietly. “You know, sometimes I miss that when I’m on Five.”

“His playing?” Kayo asked.

He nodded; as if on cue, Virgil attacked a particularly complex-sounding section of whatever he was playing. He faltered in the middle, started over, and continued on after mastering the problematic part. “Even that. Especially that. You can get Chopin anywhere, of course, but sometimes, some things just remind you of home. When he was learning with mom, Virgil was apologetic because he felt he was bothering us all. He didn’t get that it was the opposite. I was so used to hearing him practicing while I was studying that I recorded him and took it with me to university to keep me grounded.”

Something interrupted Virgil, but his loud, surprised laugh indicated that it was not necessarily a bad thing. Smiling fondly, John went back to work on the dragon. He remained silent for most of the time they spent finishing the project and Kayo wondered for a moment if he regretted telling her about something that he would have normally kept to himself. But she had caught the longing in his eyes and wondered if there was something she could do about it.

***

A couple of days later, John was finally officially cleared to return to space. Alan had done a good job of taking over while he had been gone, so getting back to work and his usual habits had been rather seamless. The redhead was glad that he'd come back when he did however, because Five was due for a maintenance routine and he didn’t want to burden his youngest brother with it.

The following week, before settling into his work, he opened a care package from the island. To his surprise, found the dragon amongst the spare parts, food and a few books. It had been packaged carefully to avoid crushing it.

“Well, hello there,” he said, amused by the little visitor, as he freed it from the package and let it float around as if it were actually flying.

EOS slid in on her rail, her lights flickering with curiosity as she detected the unexpected object. “How do you like this new home decorating effort, EOS?” he quipped, touching one of the dragon’s wings to make it spin slowly.

He frowned. Something was off about the dragon. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that it had something hanging from its neck. A note and... a portable drive? He caught the note between his fingers and turned it to read.

It was from Kayo. We thought you might want to have this, so I’ve sent a messenger, she had written in her rounded, surprisingly girly handwriting.

Someone else—Virgil from the look of it—had added: There’s more where that came from whenever you want.

John removed the portable drive from the dragon’s neck, being careful not to damage the delicate structure. He let the dragon loose again, and connected the drive to his computer. It contained what appeared to be a playlist, but John gaped when the first bars of what he could only describe as a musical bear hug began to play.

“EOS, can you play this throughout the whole sound system, please?” he asked, and began floating about peacefully as Virgil’s music filled Five. Maintenance might have to wait for a little while.


End file.
